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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,998  

systemd and age verification

Hello:

From yesterday's The Register:

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Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field
Flatpak may be next, and the lobbying behind it is raising eyebrows
by Liam Proven
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https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/24/ … ification/

After weeks of debate, code to record user age was finally merged into the Linux world's favorite system management daemon.
Pull request #40954 to the systemd project is titled "userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records." It's a new function for the existing userdb service, which adds a field to hold the user's date of birth:

Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc.

The contents of the field will be protected from modification except by users with root privileges.

The article also reveals some data regarding the lobbying behind all this BS.
Interesting.

Best,

A.

slonik

Member

Registered: 2026-03-20

Posts: 12  

Re: systemd and age verification

Officials are not really concerned with storing someone's age in the system database, but rather with verifying it, and that is only possible by submitting an ID card to some government server. A system similar to those used by banks.

Last edited by slonik (2026-03-25 08:43:28)

Duke Nukem

Member

Registered: 2018-11-07

Posts: 75  

Re: systemd and age verification

... but rather with verifying it, and that is only possible by submitting an ID card to some government server

No, that is not the only way possible, and it is not the way it is happening in the UK which has required age verification for NSFW sites since last July. It is also being applied by other sites (ie Safe for Work) for membership, out of fear. Here it is done by one of :

1) A website moderator looking at your face via your device camera - done by some small hobby forums.

2) Sending a shot of your passport, driving licence or credit card to the website for a moderator to assess.

3) The website using a verification agency who are sent a shot of your passport, driving licence or credit card. Larger websites do this (like social media) and these agencies have sprung up like mushrooms; our friend Lennart Poettering has just started one, although most are in India like other tech support and tech scamming companies.

In fact the UK government have distanced themselves from the verification process so they can't be blamed when things go wrong, like your personal details, credit card details, or entire identity being sold by fake "verification" agencies.

The UK Online Safety Act does not stop you from seeing many NSFW websites without age verification anyway. A friend told me.

Last edited by Duke Nukem (2026-03-25 10:54:45)

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 119  

Re: systemd and age verification

Those methods (especially method 2 and 3) open you up to identity theft, as anyone who gets hold of a copy of your ID can then themselves use it to register on other sites pretending to be you (or they can resell the collected copies to people who then abuse them).

Rule number one to avoid identity theft is never give anyone a copy of your ID, only show your ID in person where strictly necessary without allowing them to make an actual copy of it.

Last edited by tux_99 (2026-03-25 12:48:37)

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“Either the users control the program – or the program controls the users” Richard Stallman

slonik

Member

Registered: 2026-03-20

Posts: 12  

Re: systemd and age verification

I honestly wouldn`t be surprised if all the data - including document scans - ended up in the hands of Indian scammers. We had a scandal like that in my country. Several MPs on an investigative committee, testified that they had seen DVDs containing data copied from the largest national census. But no one could explain what happened to those discs or where they ended up.

Last edited by slonik (2026-03-25 15:22:11)